India records world’s second-highest coronavirus tally, passing Brazil

India has recorded a global one-day record of more than 90,000 positive coronavirus cases, taking the country past Brazil as the second most infected country in the world, with 4.2m confirmed cases.

The 90,802 new cases reported on Monday pushed India’s total to 4,204,614, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, passing Brazil which has an estimated 4.1 million. India has a population of about 1.3 billion while Brazil’s is about 210 million.

The increase was the third straight daily record in India.

India has been recording the world’s largest daily coronavirus caseload for almost a month even as the Government pushes to open businesses to revive a contracting economy.

Health authorities say the rising infections also reflect higher rates of testing nationwide, adding that high recovery rates show its strategy of testing, tracing and treatment is working and the situation is under control in a country of its size.

However, the virus is reaching cities and towns previously spared, offsetting marginal declines in some states.

Meanwhile in Brazil, deaths rise above 130,000. Brazil registered 874 novel coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours and 43,718 additional cases, the nation’s health ministry said on Friday. The country has now registered 130,396 coronavirus deaths and 4,282,164 confirmed cases in total.